


sugar love (queen of sonora)

by fishlette



Series: meliglōssos [4]
Category: Bright (2017)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-08-03 00:09:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16315310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishlette/pseuds/fishlette
Summary: The girl behind the counter is pretty and he can’t help but stare.OR: Kandomere stalks Leilah's ex.(((role reversal remix)))





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> warnings to be added as this is updated, please see 'lightning in a bottle' warnings for potential triggers.
> 
> fyi my attention span's short af.

The girl behind the counter is pretty. She greets them with a beaming smile as Kandomere follows Montehugh into the cramped little flower shop hidden away in the human shopping district that he usually avoided like the plague, and he can’t help but stare. She’s probably the prettiest human he’s ever seen, not that he’s ever paid enough attention to humans to warrant such an opinion. He doesn’t have time to dwell on that thought before his lungs are flooded with a cacophony of heady floral scents. Heavy and overwhelming and entirely human, nothing like the delicate powdered blossoms that he was used to. He chokes on it, leaning heavily on a display of roses to catch his breath. Kandomere can feel their eagle talon thorns biting into his palms.

“Oh no, are you okay?” The pretty human shop keeper steps out from behind the counter, gently prying his fingers away from the bloodied rose stems. She’s close now, invading his personal space like humans were wont to do. “I should probably put up a sign for elven clients huh?” She’s talking to him Kandomere thinks, but he can’t answer, his throat burns from holding in his cough. The pretty shop keeper takes one look at him and smoothes a gentle hand down his back. “Here,” she says, “sniff this.”

She holds an aromatherapy inhaler up to his nose, a pretty little glass vial. “Sniff,” She says, smiling up at him encouragingly. Kandomere does as he’s told. Winter cool peppermint calms his senses and something warm and sweet, _human._ “There you go.” She grins, “Better?” He’s about to say yes when he catches another scent, faint but terribly familiar because it’s been clinging to his nightmares for a better part of twenty years. And it’s coming from the human girl in front of him.

“Are you-”

Kandomere pushes away from her before she can finish her sentence, sending the pretty shop keeper stumbling backwards into a shelf.

“Oh geez,” Montehugh moves around him to help the girl up, shooting him a mildly exasperated look. “Sorry about that, he’s fuzzy before his morning coffee.”

They leave with a bouquet of bright yellow daffodils and two dark roasts from the café next door.

Kandomere leaves with a taste for vengeance lingering on his tongue.

..

Fact: the pretty girl behind the counter smells like she’s been drenched in Leilah’s scent.

Fact: the pretty girl behind the counter is the furthest thing from Leilah he could have ever imagined.

Kandomere lies to Montehugh about being interested in his partner’s new hobby so he can have an excuse to follow him to the little flower shop. He’s not sure if it’s a credit or a hit to his own reputation that Montehugh doesn’t even question his flimsy reason _(man I’ve seen you do some weird ass things)._ His apartment quickly becomes a greenhouse, a succulent on his bedside table, a cactus on his window sill, petunia baskets hanging from the eaves of his balcony. A small price to pay to monitor the pretty flower shop girl who smelt like his own personal boogeyman.

There’s nothing about her that would even remotely interest Leilah as far as he can tell and yet this little human wore the Witch’s scent like a second skin.

He wants her to be a demon, a Bright maybe, anything to explain the connection. All she gives him is kind smiles and gardening advice. It grates on his nerves.

And then one day while Montehugh busied himself in the greenhouse in the back, the pretty girl behind the counter marches up to him and says, “I don’t know what your problem is but if you’re going to be dick then can you be a dick somewhere else?”

Kandomere opens his mouth to respond but she cuts him off. “You can’t just keep coming here to glare at me and ignore me at the same time and expect me to put up with it just because you occasionally buy a cactus. I’ve been trying to be friendly for Monty’s sake but honestly I think you should go.”

Montehugh gives him a long winded lecture about cultural differences on the way back to the office but Kandomere tunes him out. So the pretty flower shop girl kicked him out. He couldn’t imagine Leilah putting up with anything like that.

“Man if you’re interested just tell her. Don’t pull this shit, it ain’t cute.”

He chokes on his coffee.

..

The only thing he’s interested in is the pretty flower shop girl’s connection to Leilah, Kandomere tells himself. But to Montehugh he says, _I’ll go apologize,_ so his partner will shut up and give him some peace to think.

His initial approach was wrong, Kandomere concedes. This human is not Leilah, he couldn’t hunt her like he hunted the Witch. On their next trip to the little flower shop he brings her a slice of cheesecake from the café next door.

“Peace offering,” He says.

The smile his pretty flower shop girl gives him makes the tips of his ears feel hot.

..

 _His_ pretty flower shop girl.

..

“Here take it.” His pretty flower shop girl slides two tickets across the counter to Montehugh. “Got these before my ex dumped me so they’re yours now.”

 “Hey her loss is my gain,” Montehugh whistles. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been trying to get tickets to this show? Gonna call Nick.” He hustles outside excitedly.

“Your ex?” Kandomere asks casually (tries to, succeeds only very narrowly, but his pretty flower shop girl can’t tell (and if she does, she doesn’t mention it.))

“My pretty elf girl who wanted a human fling, but not a human girlfriend. Should’ve figured it out before I got invested.” Her eyes are red tinged and misty. Kandomere bites the inside of his cheek hard, one incisor piercing his lower gums. He swallows the blood. He’s sure she’s talking about Leilah, but of course the Witch wouldn’t be interested in a human like that. The thought of Leilah being any kind of affectionate makes him want to laugh. The thought of Leilah lying to and hurting his pretty flower shop girl makes him want to punch something.

She’d used her. The Witch had gotten everything she wanted out of this little human and tossed her away like trash. Mystery solved.

“You know after all of that I was almost convinced it’s an Elf Thing to be dick because you were _such_ a dick before too. But you turned out okay.” She nudges his shoulder playfully with her fist. Kandomere grabs her hand before she can pull it back.

“I can prove all your other misconceptions about elves wrong too,” He says.

“Oh can you?”

“Try me.”

..

Fact: Leilah stole twenty years of his life.

Fact: Kandomere didn’t have to steal his pretty human from Leilah.

Fact: His scent compliments his pretty human much better.


	2. Chapter 2

Friday:  cute good morning text, unanswered

            cute text while waiting for the train, unanswered

            good night text, unanswered

Friday night/Saturday morning: two phone calls, unanswered.

Saturday 9:02 AM:  _The number you have dialled is not in service, please check that you have entered the correct number and try again._

Saturday 9:15 AM:  _The number you have dialled is not—_

..

Leilah ghosts her on her birthday because of course she does.

..

Monty’s elf friend is staring at her again, she can feel his eyes on her back like spotlights. He doesn’t like her and she knows it, what with the shoving her into the cabinets and the death glares and she’s tried so, so hard to be friends with him but  _goddamn!_

Elves just don’t like her, she supposes.

The thought makes her eyes misty again and ugh she’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry over this  _(read: Leilah and elves and Monty’s conventionally attractive friend)_ anymore but she’s always been a crybaby and  _why won’t he just stop staring?_

So she kicks him out because it’s easier to be righteously angry than to be a blubbering sobbing mess and he doesn’t like her anyway and she’ll apologise to Monty next time with a discount.

..

Monty’s elf friend brings her cheesecake.

She hates cheesecake.

“Peace offering,” he says, the tips of his pointed ears visibly pinkening where they peek out from behind his  _(box-dyed?)_  blue hair. He ducks his head ever so slightly, she wouldn’t have even noticed if not for the  _(bottle-blue?)_  wisp of hair now caught on the edge of his starched collar, separated from the rest of the perfectly neat strands. It’s terribly adorable.

She accepts it because he does seem genuinely sorry and Monty won’t stop pulling faces at her over the top of his head.

And she still hates cheesecake but he smiles at her for the first time when she takes a bite and he just looks so  _happy_  it was almost worth choking down that forkful of hellfire.

..

Monty’s elf friend’s name is Kandomere.

Monty texts her from his phone once because he dropped his own under one of the car seats and she saves the number in her contacts as the clown emoji.

“Go sit in the back.”

“What why?”

“You stink.”

“I do not!” Monty turns to her looking horribly offended. “Do I stink?”

“Yes.” Kandomere answers for her, raising one perfectly arched brow high, high, high up on his forehead.

It’s oddly _(hilariously)_ fitting, she thinks.

..

Monty calls his elf friend ‘Boss’.

 _‘Because he’s bossy,’_ Monty whispers to her when he thinks Kandomere isn’t listening. He is, this pretty elf man, definitely a little (a lot) bossy and it’s kind of _cute._

She’s on the phone with one of her suppliers and it’s actual hell. The man’s going on and on and on, louder and louder until she has to hold the phone a hand span away from her ear. And she hasn’t even said a word.

“Give me the phone,” Kandomere says lowly. His voice is right by her ear, she thinks if she turns her head their noses might touch.

She wonders if he can hear how fast her heart is beating.

“The phone, querida.”

She’s proud to say her hand only trembles a tiny little bit when she passes the phone to him. Kandomere takes it into the greenhouse and she wants to follow but Monty waves at her to stay put so she settles for straining her limited human hearing abilities. All they hear (because she’s fairly sure Monty’s hearing isn’t that great either, no matter how much he brags) are low murmurs and when Kandomere emerges it’s with the smuggest look she’s ever seen him wear.

“Check your email in ten minutes,” he says before he herds Monty back to work.

Ten minutes later there’s an ass kissing email from her supplier in her inbox and she’s google translating the word _‘querida’._

[To: _Clown Emoji_ 2:03PM] _Thanks Boss!!_

..

The ridiculously overpriced holographic VIP concert tickets she ordered to surprise her capital E capital X girlfriend arrive in her mailbox literally the day after she decides she’s officially  _over it_  and it honestly doesn’t hurt as much as she thought it would.

It still hurts a little but if Leilah doesn’t want her then she’s not going to keep pining for _her_ either okay? Okay.

Okay.

“Here take it.” She passes the tickets on to Monty and it’s totally worth the absolute fortune she dropped on them because his face lights up and gosh she loves her sasquatch-man friend so much.

“You’re the best, babe,” he smacks a loud kiss on to her crown, whooping and whistling on his way to call his boyfriend.

She must have had the most pathetic look on her face because Kandomere's being all gentle and soft and before she knows it she’s telling him all about Leilah and what she did.

It’s kind of cathartic and it’s only after she’s done with her word vomiting that she notices he’s holding her hand.

..

So they start dating.

Monty’s not surprised at all when they tell him.

..

[To: _Clown Emoji_ 9:23AM] _I! Won! The! Raffle!_

[From: _Clown Emoji_ 9:24AM] _What raffle?_

[To: _Clown Emoji_ 9:31AM] _The concert raffle!! We can double date with Monty!!_

..

Nick is a doll.

He’s sweet and shy and Monty is besotted, she can tell. She wonders if her face looks like that _(dumb, but like a really endearing kind of dumb)_ when she looks at her own boyfriend.

_Boyfriend._

She must look _so_ dumb, with the hazy, dreamy smile she can feel pulling across her face.

They’re holding hands walking along the train platform, her and her pretty elf boyfriend, after splitting up with Monty and Nick.

“I’ll come with you,” Kandomere says. But it’s _late_ and he lives on the opposite of the city and she’s not going to be the reason that he’s late for work in the morning.

“Say good night, brat,” she says, pulling away and slipping through the train doors as they slam close, blowing him a kiss from the window.

She still has that silly smile on her face when she floats from the train platform to her apartment building, when she breezes up the stairs to her unit. It falls away when she turns down the hall, when she sees the sad shadow in her doorway.

..

“Leilah?”


	3. Chapter 3

Leilah doesn’t remember making her way to this side of the city, doesn’t remember much of anything besides the frantic buzzing in her skull like a swarm of angry wasps and the restless lightning bolts crackling under her skin. _Two wands down, one more to go._ She’d held them both, one in each hand, and felt the raw magic eat its way through her veins. Her palms sting, burnt to a crisp before she reluctantly surrendered her precious cargo, but the pain might as well have been from mosquito bites so miniscule it was compared to the delirious elation of _victory._ She was close, so, so, _so_ close to her goal, _their_ goal.

Their Dark Lord.

And everything that would come after.

Leilah wanders aimlessly, following an invisible path, until she sees a familiar orange glow in a familiar corner window of a familiar ivy covered building.

 _Focus,_ Tien’s voice echoes coldly in her ears. Leilah ignores her.

She can afford to do this now, to see _her_ now that they have two _(two!)_ wands in their possession.

The thought (her, her, her, _the girl)_ makes Leilah’s heart ache.

Cloying saccharine melancholy floods her lungs and suddenly she can’t breathe. Leilah staggers inelegantly towards the cheery little apartment building. Her charred fingers shaking as she punches in the familiar security code, feeling equal parts delighted and offended to find it unchanged. _Oh, you foolish thing,_ she thinks fondly.

The lock on the front door though, has been changed.

Leilah crushes the shiny silver key in her hand reflexively and hisses when the freezing metal bites into her blistered flesh. Syrupy blood drips off her fingertips and stains the welcome mat under her high heeled shoes that says _bonjour!_ to her mockingly. It’s new, Leilah observes, pale blue with bold navy letters. She digs a spiked heel into the exclamation mark. The lightning bolts bleed out of her with every _drip, drip, drip_ of blood. She should leave, Leilah thinks, but exhaustion and _yearning_ push hard on her shoulders.

_Just one look._

Just one little peek.

She earned it.

Leilah sits with her back to the door, welcome mat kicked to the side in a heap. She shuts her eyes.

And waits.

..

It’d been a terrible idea, smuggling down to Main Street at the crack of dawn to go _shopping_ of all things with her sister. Heavy rain drops force them into the closest shop (to spite her probably for complaining about the too bright sun just minutes before). Leilah shields their (Tikka’s) paper shopping bags grudgingly, her sister would be so disappointed if her new knick-knacks were damaged.

They tumble through the door, pushing in front of each other to get out of the rain and scaring the poor little human shop keeper right off of her precarious perch on her stepladder. She squeaks and Tikka gasps and Leilah rolls her eyes, dropping her (Tikka’s) shopping bags in favour of catching the pretty girl in the frilly sundress.

The pretty human girl blinks up at Leilah gratefully, a hazy blush painting her cheeks.

_Absolutely terrible._

..

She doesn’t mean to get attached. Not at all.

But this human _(her human)_ was just, _just…_

..

And then Serafin finds out.

And Tien finds out.

And Tikka is _terrified._ (For her, her, her, _the girl.)_

(And somewhere in the pit of her stomach Leilah feels something that might be fear too.)

..

She never should have given the human _(her human)_ her phone number.

Leilah’s phones chimes furiously, once, twice, three times. She smashes it against the concrete floor.

..

She wishes she still had that phone now.

..

“Oh you stupid thing!”

She doesn’t remember falling asleep but when she opens her eyes it’s to a dimly lit room with blush coloured walls and a pretty human _(her pretty human)_ gingerly cradling her singed hands. Leilah’s pretty flower shop girl is grumbling under her breath, things like _idiot_ and _exceptionally dumb_ and Leilah is giddy, no, ecstatic (she can admit it) to hear her voice.

It’s been months.

She sucks in a sharp breath as her pretty human dabs antiseptic gel on to her stinging palms and catches a whiff of something strange.

Something elven.

Something _terrible._

Leilah’s head is buzzing again and burning, burning, burning at her temples, behind her eyes.

“Shh,” her pretty flower shop girl says, “don’t fret.” How could she not? When her pretty human _(hers!)_ carried _that_ scent.

“What did he do?” She manages to rasp, her throat is on fire. “What did he do?”

“What did who do?” her pretty flower shop girls asks.

She doesn’t know. How can she not know?

Then how?

_How? How? How?_

“Oh, you’re burning up.” Leilah’s pretty flower shop girl clicks her tongue. “I thought elves didn’t get sick?”

Leilah tries to push herself off the bed but her human stops her with one finger on her forehead.

“Don’t even think about it,” She says, “stay put.”

Leilah shoots her a weak glare but doesn’t try to move again. Her human beams.

“I’m gonna make you some soup. Rest okay?” She pinches Leilah’s chin and moves her head up and down to make her nod. Leilah kicks her where she sits beside her on the bed, her pretty flower shop girl pinches her chin again flees the room.

The scent lingers.

..

Later, after she’d been force-fed and her hands cleaned and bandaged, Leilah snoops.

Her pretty flower shop girl had insisted on sleeping outside. _(You’re sick sweet pea, you need to sleep on a real bed. I can take the sofa for one night.)_

Her human had left her phone charging on the kitchen counter. The notification light blinking bright, bright, bright in the darkened room.

[To: _Clown Emoji_ 1:14AM] Can we take a rain check for breakfast?

[From: _Clown Emoji_ 1:20AM] Why? What’s wrong?

[From: _Clown Emoji_ 1:29AM] Text me back querida.

1:35AM: _Missed call from Clown Emoji_

1:38AM: _Missed call from Clown Emoji_

1:39AM: _You have 1 new voicemail message._

[To: _Clown Emoji_ 1:43AM] Sorry, sorry, sorry! My friend’s having a crisis…fill you in tomorrow night?

[From: _Clown Emoji_ 1:44AM] 7pm sharp. I’ll pick you up at the shop.

..

7 PM indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *marie kondo voice*: i love mess!


End file.
